Arnold Schoenberg
1874-1951 · Austrian-American (Vienna/Los Angeles) · Modernism
Known for: Inventor of twelve-tone composition, the most radical break in Western music history
Schoenberg abandoned tonality entirely by 1908 and by 1923 had systematized his approach as twelve-tone serialism - the most consequential musical innovation since Wagner. He was also a gifted painter, a triskaidekaphobe who feared the number 13, and died on Friday the 13th.
He was a refugee from Nazism who reconverted to Judaism in Paris before settling in Hollywood. His early Romantic works are lush; his later serial works are the musical equivalent of abstract art.
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